EXCLUSIVE @Divergent Set Visit Report: The Fansites Sit Down with Shailene Woodley and Zoe Kravitz

Back in May of this year, Divergent Lexicon had the amazing opportunity to visit the set of Divergent in Chicago. We got to hang out with several fan-sites, visit locations from the books like the Navy Pier, and of course meet and interview the cast of the film. All of our interviews, with the exception of Theo James and Jai Courtney, were conducted in the HUGE chasm set and for the most part the cast members were in their costumes! Trust us, they’re pretty impressive. The hint of Four’s tattoo peeking out from the top of Theo’s t-shirt is forever etched into our brains. But we’ll have those swoony details for you at a later date. With the release of Allegiant now upon us, we wanted to share with you guys some of the details of our set visit that we’d previously been prohibited from sharing. We won’t be sharing everything- we’ve got to save some goodies for Divergent promotion in February/March- but believe us when we say there is a LOT more where this came from.

First off, we had the opportunity to go ONTO the South Wells Street location used for the exterior Abnegation shots. A few of us had gone there the day before and took photos from the street corner but the next day we were driven right up to the buildings! Of course the homes were just bare bones when we were on location but it was still very cool to see up close! The construction crew was hard at work but of course we had to snap a few photos! Here’s one of our fan-site group with (most) of Willis Tower behind us. It really was a gorgeous day.

In addition to the Abnegation set we’re SO excited to share with you our interview with Tris and Christina themselves, Shailene Woodley and Zoe Kravitz! These two have a strong friendship in real life that rivals their character’s friendship and it was so fun to see. The highlight was probably the moment in the middle when Ben Lamb called the set publicist’s phone, which was on the table between us. Ben hung up before just before Shailene and Zoe answered but it was still entertaining to see their playful sides as they answered the phone. In attendance at this interview in addition to Shailene and Zoe were fellow fan-sites Divergent Fans, IAMDivergent.com, Fandom.Net, Divergent Examiner, Divergent Guide, Divergent Movies/Fangirlish, andDivergent Society.

Here’s the Q&A:

Shailene, was it intimidating for you to come into sort of a heroic type of YA literature role?

Shailene: Um, it was intimidating because of the word heroic. I don’t think Tris is a hero necessarily- she’s not a super hero and she’s not like an action star, she’s just a normal girl who’s put in a very elevated situation and she has to rise to the occasion. Just in the same way had it been Christina who had been in this situation, she would have risen to that event. I don’t think that Tris is more special than anyone else, she’s just the one that has to be girl who has to get her shit together.

Zoe: (laughs) Get your shit together.

Do you relate to your characters in any way?

Shailene: You relate to yours a lot right? (to Zoe)

Zoe: Yeah, because I can’t keep my mouth shut? Yes I do, I do. Christina’s like- she’s brave and she’s wacky and she’s honest. I have no filter either.

Shailene: They’re both Sagittarius.

Zoe: It’s true.

Were you excited when you got the parts?

Shailene: Very excited. Yeah, I was more excited when she got the part.

Zoe: Aww.

Were you guys friends before this?

Zoe: No.

Shailene: SUCH good friends. Yeah, we met doing this. We had a lot of mutual friends.

You guys are obviously wearing very different costumes. How much does it help you to step out of those and into Dauntless?

Shailene: You want to take that?

Zoe: Go for it.

Shailene: Well, you see right now I’m wearing some laundry cloths…some kitchen wipes. Um, no I think the Dauntless clothes are very cool because they’re very tactical based and Carlo the designer did a really good job at making them functional as well as physical beautiful for the eyes to look at. And so to transform obviously from going into a dress to leggings that you can move and run and kick inis a pretty big difference.

Zoe: Yeah I mean the Dauntless outfits are badass- you feel tougher depending on what you’re wearing. I put on my big army boots and I’m ready to fight.

There was lots of chemistry testing to find the right Four and fans are really excited to see that on screen. Can you tell us anything about the chemistry?

Shailene: Yeah

Zoe: Through the roof!

Shailene: Whhaatt, outta control! Theo’s great, he’s awesome I mean we relate on a very human level with each other. Everyone gets along really great, I know I’m supposed to be talking about Theo, so I’ll go back to Theo.

Zoe: (laughs) but Theo…

Shailene: But Theo…

Why is he the perfect Four?

Shailene: He’s the perfect Four because he’s very similar to Four in real life. Theo’s very mysterious in some ways. He was also a philosophy major so he had a life completely different from this for a long time. He’s traveled the world, he’s a very worldly human being.

Zoe: He’s also really good-looking.

Shailene: He’s also gorgeous to look at.

(Publicist’s phone begins to ring and they see that it’s Ben Lamb calling. Shailene and Zoe answer it but Ben doesn’t answer)

(We receive warning that we have time for only two more questions)

Shailene: Oh shit, sorry. Theo. He was a philosophy major so he’s got a lot of different experiences outside of the acting world which I think add to his character and to him as a human being. He’s very professional and doesn’t take anything too seriously which is really important.

Zoe: He’s super goofy.

Shailene: He’s super goofy. It’s really exciting to see him be like the “hot new thing” that all these girls are going to go after, like you don’t know Theo…

Zoe: Yeah, he’s just a dork.

Shailene: He’s a dork.

Did you guys know about Divergent before you auditioned or was it something you heard about later?

Shailene: Um, I was kind of given, we were given the book to read…did you? (turns to Zoe)

Zoe: I read the script first when I was just auditioning for it and then once I got it I was like I guess I should read…

Shailene: When I was auditioning for it, there wasn’t a script for it so I read the book so that’s what turned me on to it.

You had talked, I guess at Sundance when you were doing The Spectacular Now, you had talked about there were some parts of Divergent you could use as like a platform to teach the public.

Shailene: Oh hell yeah…

So what, I mean could you be more specific.

Shailene: Yeah I mean, metaphorically this movie has a lot of interesting themes woven into it everything from, in Divergent they get injected with the serum and the government can control their minds and yet today we’re chipping dogs, we’re chipping babies, like as a society. There’s a lot of things that are going on and then as far as like food goes, in the book Veronica Roth, she has a line that goes ‘back in the day, people used to have a choice whether to buy genetically modified food or not. Now, that’s all that exists.’ And I think that that’s really, really important for our society, modern day, to look at because all these other companies are taking over and it’s kind of becoming a corporate world and we as the people have the power to say something now. Just in the same that way Tris has the power to go up against Jeanine so I mean…I could go on for hours.

What has been your favorite day on set?

Shailene: Oh Zoe, tell them…your favorite day!

Zoe: Shit…what day, is there a day I should be remembering…oh we did crowd surfing! We had this amazing day where we got to like crowd surf for like 45 minutes straight.

Shailene: It was so fun. So fun. In the cafeteria.

Zoe: All the Dauntless born picked up us up.

Yeah we heard lots of hamburgers…

Shailene: So many hamburgers…so many hamburgers…

Zoe: That was a good day.

Shailene: It was a good day.

Zoe: (to Shailene) What was your favorite day?

Shailene: The ferris wheel was one of my favorite days. Just ‘cause that was badass. I’ll probably never get to climb a ferris wheel again. And I got to be on a ferris wheel for like 14 hours with Theo…

Zoe: Romance…

Shailene: ROMANCE…

Zoe: Hashtag romance

Shailene: Hashtag romance…and bromance…

Zoe: What?

Shailene: What?

Zoe, you’re not on Twitter are you?

Zoe: No

So there’s Part 1. We can’t wait to share everything else with you guys. It won’t be too long now…

What do you think, Initiates? What was your favorite part of the interview? Whose interview are you looking forward to us posting? Let us know in the comments below!